“…some of the most compelling women characters you’re likely to find in print. [… Dorothy] Dunnett’s female characters have both feet firmly planted in a sixteenth-century world” Historian @yvonneseale.bsky.social on the women of THE LYMOND CHRONICLES #BookWormSat 💙📚 yvonneseale.org/blog/2019/05...

The Women of the Lymond Chronicles

Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles may be one of the most influential series of novels that most people have never heard of. The books follow nobleman Francis Crawford of Lymond on his high-stakes ad...

yvonneseale.org

In class today, a student asked me how many Holy Prepuces (the supposed circumcised foreskin of the infant Jesus, venerated as a relic) were floating around in medieval Europe. I didn't know the exact number, looked it up, and stumbled across this fun fact. Surely one of history's weirder jobs?

So pleased to have contributed to this article in the latest issue of JMMS on cartulary editing and analysis! doi.org/10.1484/J.JM...

The Past, Present, and Future of Cartulary Studies: JMMS at IMC 2024: Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies: Vol 14

This joint article presents in published form papers delivered at the Leeds International Medieval Congress in 2024 as well as expanding on aspects of the roundtable discussion that complemented the p...

doi.org

My current (Catherine Connolly, second from left) and former presidents (Mary McAleese, Michael D. Higgins, Mary Robinson) displayed a real commitment to colour coordination at today's presidential inauguration.

Thrilled to have written something for "Childhood and the Irish" (ed. @salvadorryan.bsky.social), a collection which explores so many aspects of growing up in Ireland over the centuries. My contribution is about piecing together the life of a foundling ancestor. wordwellbooks.com/index.php?ro...

Would you say that in Ireland we have a "tea-ceful" transfer of power? ... I'll see myself out.

RTÉ News@news.rte.ie · 9mo ago

A Dublin woman who has crocheted thousands of 'Michael Tea Higgins' tea cosies is preparing for a new presidency

Something I do at least once a year, before I teach a class on a specific topic in the history of antisemitism in medieval Europe: check to see if a certain archdiocese's website still has a page stating that one of the blood libel myths is a historical event. Yup, still there! It's November 2025.

Built in the early 13th century for the Conti di Segni (the family of Pope Innocent III), the Torre has survived multiple earthquakes—will it survive this? I very much hope the injured and trapped workers are all rescued and recover speedily. The video is so unnerving to watch.

RTÉ News@news.rte.ie · 9mo ago

A worker was hospitalised with serious injuries following the partial collapse of a medieval tower under renovation in central Rome near the Colosseum, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.

Autocorrect: saving you from a dire fate at the hands of the scribe-tormenting Tutivillus? "Tutivillus complains that “I muste eche day [...] brynge my master a thousande pokes full of faylynges, & of neglygences in syllables and wordes… else I must be sore beten." daily.jstor.org/tutivillus-i...

Tutivillus Is Watching You - JSTOR Daily

For medieval scribes, mistakes couldn’t be easily shrugged off, as Tutivillus, the stickler demon, was always looking over their shoulders.

daily.jstor.org

And with a bigger percentage of first-preference votes than even Dev managed back in the '50s.

RTÉ News@news.rte.ie · 9mo ago

#Breaking Independent Catherine Connolly to become tenth President of Ireland after resounding election victory | Watch and follow live

A neat tool I just came across: Viabundus, a digital road map of northern Europe 1350-1650, that lets you calculate contemporary travel routes/times. In 1500, going Amiens → Köln by horse took almost 7 days and 13 toll payments. #medievalsky www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstras...

Sometimes a translator's name will make you pause and blink at the title page.

A heads up: the platform I've been using to host my searchable database of #medieval Premonstratensian sisters is ending its free hosting plan on short notice. Since I can't justify spending $100/month (!) on this, or find a viable alternative, it'll go away on Oct 1. yvonneseale.org/atlas/sisters

The Sisters of Prémontré: A Prosopographical Database

A Premonstratensian Atlas is a directory of communities and properties relating to the Premonstratensian Order in the Middle Ages (ca. 1120-ca. 1550). Entries may be filtered by country, diocese, circ...

yvonneseale.org

One of my all-time favourite series of books!

Association for Scottish Literature@asls.org.uk · 12mo ago

“…some of the most compelling women characters you’re likely to find in print. […] Dunnett’s female characters have both feet firmly planted in a sixteenth-century world.” Historian @yvonneseale.bsky.social’s appreciation of the women of THE LYMOND CHRONICLES 💙📚 5/6 yvonneseale.org/blog/2019/05...

It was always a "real thing," it just turns out to be a little bit older - and therefore more important - than originally thought. This article demonstrates how the word "copy" can be misinterpreted, especially in the context of medieval manuscript studies. 1/2

The Fake History Hunter@fakehistoryhunter.net · last yr.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

"The papal privilege issued in 1195 by Pope Celestine III is one of the few sources that allows for an insight into the history of St Mary’s, Clonard, and Agnes Ní Máelshechlainn’s tenacity in defending her monastery from expropriation during the English conquest of Ireland."

Meet 'The Great Nun' who won papal protection in Medieval Ireland

Agnetha Ní Máelshechlainn was a clever political negotiator who defended her monastery from expropriation during the English conquest of Ireland

rte.ie

Going down a series of rabbit holes following yesterday's events led me to the discovery that as well as the more well known "Conclave" (2024) there is also "The Conclave" (2006), an intensely early 2000s made-for-TV-on-a-shoestring-budget movie about the papal conclave of 1458.

I don't think anyone had Prevost very high on the lists of the papabili—wow. What a moment to get to witness, the first pope from the United States. (The first pope to be a baseball and/or American football fan?)

I've updated my " #Premonstratensian Order in the Middle Ages" bibliography site. It now contains 6,250 entries & covers: — Secondary lit on the order, 1480s-2025 — 22 languages from Basque to Swedish — Array of digital & print sources — Themes, houses & individuals www.geneseo.edu/researchweb/...

Today at Geneseo, a community rally in support of science and higher ed in general—3:30-6pm in Bailey Hall! History Department faculty will be there.

"Switzerland’s Abbey of Saint Gall has agreed to lend 17 manuscripts to the National Museum of Ireland ... for a landmark exhibition that will combine artefacts and parchments to recreate a sense of Ireland’s golden age as the “land of saints and scholars." #medievalsky On my summer to-see list!

Millennium-old monks’ manuscripts return to Ireland for exhibition

Books include religious scriptures and scribbled jokes, giving glimpse of daily lives of early medieval Irish monks

irishexaminer.com

The May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine @historyextra.bsky.social is out, and includes a piece by me on the famed relationship of Abelard and Heloise, and why it can't just be simply summed up as a love affair. www.historyextra.com/magazine/cur...

Agree with the author at a minimum that a Battle of Clontarf movie or miniseries would be wonderful, but I feel like so much would depend on whether they truly get that Beard looking Silken.

Why Sitric Silkenbeard is the greatest Dubliner of all time

He may be seen as one of the baddies of Irish history thanks to the Battle of Clontarf, but Silkenbeard built Dublin into a cosmopolitan city

rte.ie

Get thee to a nunnery ✝️

"The 15th-century Arma Christi was found in a shoebox filled with leaflets from the 1980s at Bar Convent, by Dr Hannah Thomas, while she was cataloguing the religious order's collection." www.bbc.com/news/article...

Rare medieval scroll found in shoebox goes on display in York

The 15th-century Arma Christi, one of only 11 copies, is the focus of a new gallery at Bar Convent.

bbc.com

While working on slides for my classes this week, I came across this portrait of the 13th-c. pope John XXI, and I am both agog at and charmed by the luxuriant mustachios that the artist bestowed on him. Poirot is envious! (Portrait: Unknown artist, 16th c., now Gallery of the Archbishops of Braga.)

Sad sad story about the ransacking of Sudan's national museum by RSF fighters. Thousands of artefacts are gone. The museum "held mummies dating from 2500BC, making them among the oldest and archaeologically most important in the world." www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

New images reveal extent of looting at Sudan’s national museum as rooms stripped of treasures

Only a few statues remain, with thousands of priceless artefacts from Nubian and Kushite kingdoms missing

theguardian.com

Elizabeth Elstob: the pioneering first female Anglo-Saxonist historytoday.com/first-female... by @yvonneseale.bsky.social [Feb 2016]

The First Female Anglo-Saxonist

historytoday.com

"It may come as a surprise [...] that one of the world's rarest pieces of Chinese porcelain resides permanently in Dublin. Made in China around 1300AD, it is the earliest example of Chinese porcelain known to have reached Europe and was owned by royalty for centuries."

'A flukey purchase': the curious story of the Fonthill vase

Here's how one of the rarest pieces of Chinese porcelain in the world ended up in the National Museum of Ireland

rte.ie